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2025 Sundance Film Festival Announces Jury Members

PARK CITY, UTAH, January 14, 2025 — The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 16 jurors granting awards honoring excellence in cinematic and artistic achievement at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, along with the five jury members who present the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. The 2025 Festival will kick off on Thursday, January 23, with premieres in Park City every day through the end of Tuesday, January 28. Additional showings will take place in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the Festival until Sunday, February 2. Over 11 days, world debuts of projects across program categories will highlight fresh voices, entertaining stories, and groundbreaking works.

Select awarded films in competition will be screened in person from February 1–2. Single Film Tickets for in-person and online screenings go on sale Thursday, January 16, at 10 a.m. MT. Visit the Sundance Film Festival website for more information: festival.sundance.org.

The 16 jury members, reflecting a range of diverse and influential perspectives, will select the winners to be announced during the Awards Ceremony held at The Ray Theatre on Friday, January 31. The 2025 Sundance Film Festival jury includes: Reinaldo Marcus Green, Arian Moayed, andCeline Song for the U.S. Dramatic Competition; Steven Bognar, Vinnie Malhotra, and Marcia Smithfor the U.S. Documentary Competition; Ava Cahen, Wanuri Kahiu, and Daniel Kaluuya for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition; Daniela Alatorre, Laura Kim, and Kevin Macdonald for the World Cinema Documentary Competition; Kaniehtiio Horn, Maggie Mackay, and Kibwe Tavares for the Short Film Program Competition; and Elijah Wood for the NEXT section.

The jury for the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize deliberated ahead of the Festival and awarded the prize to SALLY, directed by Cristina Costantini. This jury includes Michael Almereyda, Nia Imara, Monica Lopez, Nicholas Ma, and Sam and Andy Zuchero. 

“We are thrilled to announce the incredible and accomplished group that comprise the 2025 Sundance Film Festival’s jury,” said Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming. “The jury plays a pivotal role in helping us recognize and amplify a new generation of storytellers, which is a crucial part of our work in independent cinema.”

“The jury will embark on an exciting journey to recognize the storytelling and artistic achievements that are a part of this year’s program,” said Kim Yutani, the Festival’s Director of Programming. “We are truly appreciative of their commitment and are looking forward to having them join us at the Festival.”

Festivalgoers attending in person will participate in selecting the 2025 Audience Awards, which are available to films in the U.S. Competition, World Competition, and NEXT categories. Attendees will also have the opportunity to vote for the Festival Favorite, chosen from all in-person eligible feature film screenings. The Audience Awards will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on Friday, January 31. The Festival Favorite film will be announced at the conclusion of the Festival on Sunday, February 2.

Following are the 2025 Sundance Film Festival Jury members and their respective sections:

U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION JURY

Reinaldo Marcus Green is a writer, director, and producer. He most recently directed and wrote Paramount’s Bob Marley: One Love, which debuted at number one at the box office. Green is best known for directing the critically acclaimed Warner Bros. film King Richard, which was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and earned Will Smith his first Oscar win.

 

Arian Moayed, an Iranian-born actor, co-founded Waterwell in New York City. Credits include Tony Award nominations for Broadway’s A Doll’s House and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, The Humans (Drama Desk Award), Guards at the Taj (Obie Award), Succession(two Emmy nominations), Inventing Anna (Netflix), and Ms. Marvel.

 

Celine Song’s feature debut, Past Lives (2023 Sundance Film Festival), received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay and won Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director and Best Feature and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – First-Time Feature Film. A24 will release her second film.

U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION JURY

Steven Bognar is an Oscar- and Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker based in Ohio. His films include American Factory (2019 Sundance Film Festival), 9to5: The Story of a Movement, A Lion in the House (2006 Sundance Film Festival), and The Last Truck. He co-directed each with his late partner, Julia Reichert.

 

Vinnie Malhotra, an Emmy- and Peabody Award–winning producer, leads the film and TV division of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground. Malhotra served as executive vice president of nonfiction programming at Showtime, led development and acquisitions at CNN Worldwide, and began his career as an ABC News producer.

 

Marcia Smith is a filmmaker, writer, and a co-founder and president of Firelight Media, a nonprofit organization that supports and advocates on behalf of documentary filmmakers of color. She recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from DOC NYC and a Silver Anthem Award for Nonprofit Leadership — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION JURY

Ava Cahen is the artistic director of Cannes Critics’ Week. She is the co-founder and co–chief editor of frenchmania.fr. Cahen is a commentator on Canal+’s Le Cercle and previously took part in several Le Masque et la Plume programs on France Inter. She regularly juries and does workshops at international festivals.

 

Wanuri Kahiu is a filmmaker, speaker, and writer. Kahiu’s Rafiki was the first Kenyan film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival. One of Time magazine’s 100 Next in 2019, she’s a World Economic Forum cultural leader and co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM. Kahiu is set to direct Disney’s Once on This Island.

 

Daniel Kaluuya is an Oscar-, BAFTA-, and Golden Globe–winning actor, writer, producer, and director. His credits include Judas and the Black Messiah, Get Out, Nope, Widows, Sicario, Black Panther, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Kaluuya wrote, produced, and co-directed The Kitchen for Netflix.

WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION JURY

Daniela Alatorre is an accomplished Mexican producer and filmmaker with over 20 short and feature films to her credit. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Mexican Film Academy and was recently appointed as general director of the Mexican Film Institute.

 

Laura Kim was executive vice president of marketing at the recently shuttered Participant Media, where she contributed to campaigns for Academy Award–winning American Factory, A Fantastic Woman, Spotlight, and Citizenfour, as well as All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Descendant, Flee, and The Look of Silence.

 

Kevin Macdonald is a Scottish director and producer who has made BAFTA- and Oscar-winning documentaries and features over a 30-year career. His work includes The Mauritanian, One to One: John and Yoko, Touching the Void, One Day in September, Marley, and Life in a Day.

NEXT JUROR

Elijah Wood is a partner and co-founder of SpectreVision, the indie genre production company behind A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Mandy.His acting credits include The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Ice Storm, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Wilfred, and Over the Garden Wall.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM COMPETITION JURY

Kaniehtiio Horn is a Mohawk actress, writer-director, and producer. Her feature directorial debut, Seeds, which she wrote and starred in, premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. She was awarded the 2024 Jean-Marc Vallée DGC Discovery Award. Acting credits include Reservation Dogs, Alice, Darling, Rutherford Falls, andLetterkenny.

 

Maggie Mackay, Vidiots Foundation’s executive director, developed her love of film as a child in her local New York City cinemas and video stores. For 13 years she was a senior programmer of the L.A. Film Festival and director of nominations for the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

 

Kibwe Tavares is an architect-turned-filmmaker known for visually stunning, imaginative storytelling. His acclaimed shorts (Robots of Brixton, Jonah, The Kitchen) and work on Noughts + Crosses showcase his talent for blending world-building with human emotion. Co-founder of Factory Fifteen, Tavares explores futuristic narratives rooted in societal and cultural themes.

ALFRED P. SLOAN FEATURE FILM PRIZE JURY

Michael Almereyda’s filmography spans 30 years. Marjorie Prime (2017) and Tesla (2020) won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, and Skinningrove (2013) won the Sundance Film Festival  Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction. He has written for The New York Times, Artforum, Film Comment, and booklets for the Criterion Collection.

 

Nia Imara is an artist, an astrophysicist, a professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz, and the founder of Onaketa, a nonprofit providing free STEM tutoring for Black and brown children. Imara’s new book,

Painting the Cosmos, about the intersection of art and science, will be released in February 2025.

 

Dr. Monica Lopez is an entrepreneur and one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics. She is developing human-centered artificial intelligence. Prior, she was a photographer and a writer-director and producer of theater and film, merging artistic work with research in the neuroscience of creativity. Her Ph.D. is in cognitive science from Johns Hopkins University.

 

Nicholas Ma is an award-winning director, writer, and producer whose films span an eclectic array of topics, from botany to basketball to Fred Rogers. Recently he wrote and directed Mabel (2024 San Francisco International Film Festival), directed Leap of Faith(Picturehouse, 2024), and became a father! He lives in Brooklyn.

Sam and Andy Zuchero have been making art together since their teens. Their first feature, Love Me, starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and will be released by Bleecker Street and Focus Features in 2025. The film follows a buoy and satellite who meet online, fall in love, and they discover what it means to be alive. Andy’s short film The Apocalypse premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and won Best Midnight Short at SXSW. Sam has a background in theater and has acted in several independent films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

WHO

Sundance Institute

As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute’s signature labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. Sundance Collab, a digital community platform, brings a global cohort of working artists together to learn from Sundance advisors and connect with each other in a creative space, developing and sharing works in progress. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences and artists to ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Through the Sundance Institute artist programs, we have supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Big Sick, Bottle Rocket, Boys Don’t Cry, Boys State, Call Me by Your Name, Clemency, CODA, Drunktown’s Finest, The Farewell, Fire of Love, Flee, The Forty-Year-Old Version, Fruitvale Station, Half Nelson, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hereditary, Honeyland, The Infiltrators, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Woods, Love & Basketball, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Mudbound, Nanny, One Child Nation, Pariah, Raising Victor Vargas, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, RBG, Sin Nombre, Sorry to Bother You, Strong Island, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Swiss Army Man, A Thousand and One, Top of the Lake, Walking and Talking, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, and Zola. Through year-round artist programs, the Institute also nurtured the early careers of such artists as Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Ryan Coogler, Nia DaCosta, The Daniels, David Gordon Green, Miranda July, James Mangold, John Cameron Mitchell, Kimberly Peirce, Boots Riley, Ira Sachs, Quentin Tarantino, Taika Waititi, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao. Support Sundance Institute in our commitment to uplifting bold artists and powerful storytelling globally by making a donation at sundance.org/donate. Join Sundance Institute onFacebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), andYouTube.

Sundance Film Festival®

The Sundance Film Festival, a program of the nonprofit, Sundance Institute, is the pre-eminent gathering of original storytellers and audiences seeking new voices and fresh perspectives. Since 1985, hundreds of films launched at the Festival have gone on to gain critical acclaim and reach new audiences worldwide. The Festival has introduced some of the most groundbreaking films and episodic works of the past three decades, including Daughters, Dìdi (弟弟), A Real Pain, Sujo, Thelma, Will & Harper, Past Lives, 20 Days in Mariupol, The Eternal Memory, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, A Thousand and One, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Rye Lane, Navalny, Fire of Love, Flee, CODA, Passing, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Minari, Clemency, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Zola, O.J.: Made in America, On the Record, Boys State, The Farewell, Honeyland, One Child Nation, The Souvenir, The Infiltrators, Sorry to Bother You, Top of the Lake, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Hereditary, Call Me by Your Name, Get Out, The Big Sick, Mudbound, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Precious, The Cove, Little Miss Sunshine, An Inconvenient Truth, Napoleon Dynamite, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Reservoir Dogs, and sex, lies, and videotape. The program consists of fiction and nonfiction features and short films, series and episodic content, innovative storytelling, and performances, as well as conversations, and other events. The Festival takes place in person in Utah, as well as online, connecting audiences to bold new artists and films. The 2025 Festival will be held January 23–February 2, 2025. Be a part of the Festival at festival.sundance.org and follow the Festival on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X(formerly Twitter), and YouTube.

The Festival is a program of the nonprofit Sundance Institute. To date 2025 Festival sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, AMC+, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Adobe; Leadership Sponsors – Audible, Casamigos, Omnicom Group, Shutterstock, United Airlines; Sustaining Sponsors – Canon U.S.A., Inc., Darling&Co., Dropbox, World of Hyatt®, IMDbPro, MACRO, Rabbit Hole Bourbon & Rye, University of Utah Health, Vimeo, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, White Claw Hard Seltzer; Media Sponsors – Deadline Hollywood, IndieWire, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Vibe, Vulture, TheWrap. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year round programs for independent artists. Please visit festival.sundance.org for more.

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